Snowflake Explorers TM

For as long as humans have inhabited the Earth we have been both fascinated and frustrated by snow, ice and adverse weather conditions. With the invention of the microscope, the tiny mysterious crystals of ice have been brought into focus as stunningly beautiful...and still quite mysterious.

Thanks to the efforts, imaginations and talents of artic explorers and scientists, the mystery of the snowflake and ice crystal formation is becoming, well, less mysterious with each passing day. Snow crystal classification is important for determining snow conditions. For instance, very heavy snow can cause roofs of houses and buildings to cave in, make tree limbs snap and break power lines.

Ski resorts and other winter vacation spots depend upon heavy snowfall and blizzards to keep their ski slopes packed full of good, soft, skiable snow. When they don't get enough snow some resorts make their own snow with snow-making machines.

Modern Day and Early Snow Crystal Scientific Explorers

Snowstorms develop when warm, moist air collides with cold air. Blizzards are heavy falling snow storms that come with high winds that blow the snow so hard sometimes you can't see anything around you.

Blizzards are very dangerous snow conditions for people driving cars or trucks or flying in airplanes. Crystal classification helps predict such adverse conditions.

The scientists and explorers have all contributed toward our collective knowledge of snow conditions.

Teachers may use these images to teach children about the history of snowflake exploration and to introduce snowflake science and snowflake illustration.

1611 - German astronomer Johannes Kepler The Six-Cornered Snowflake. Kepler wrote a short pamphlet entitled "Strena Seu de Nive Sexangula" (A New Year's gift of Hexagonal Snow) in 1611 for a friend. Kepler wrote about the hexagonal symmetry of snowflakes and most efficient ways to package spheres. This treatis later became known as the Kepler conjecture. Kepler studied the snowflake very carefully and thoroughly even though he had said that to care for such a trifle was like Socrates measuring the hop of a flea.

1635 - Philosopher and mathematician René Descartes, The Geometry of René Descartes. In 1611 he published a small book entitled "The Six-Cornered Snowflake" in which he proposed that the hexagonal shape originates from water particles in the snow crystal.

1665 - English Polymath Robert Hooke published "Micrographia" which contained many images which could be viewed through the newly invented microscope.

1910 - Russian Meterologist Shuchukevich, while studying falling snow near Leningrad, noted 246 different types of crystals over a 176 day period.

1872 - Irish Scientist John Tyndall published the book The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers Ice and Glaciers in which he described snowflakes and explained how molecules bond to each other.

1954 - Japanese physicist Ukichiro Nakaya published a book entitled Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial. He was the first person to perform a true systematic study of Shimo no hana [Frost flowers], or snow crystals by growing artificial snow crystals in the laboratory under controlled conditions.